Return from Vacation. Finishing Fireworks and Beginning Onsen. (Patreon)

I just returned from my vacation. I got A LOT done this past week and have tons to show today. To start, I have finished the fireworks. They came out very well. Big thanks to Calpico for being in charge of the sound engineering. First, how they work.

Rockets will be purchase-able in the market like other fruits and vegetables, when using the action button, the firework will light up and the fuse will start:

The fuse eats away at the mesh until it completes the full length of the string. After this the rocket will be propelled upwards for roughly 3 seconds.

Each rocket will have 1 random color when exploding. That color will also illuminate the entire town so it looks realistic:

The boom sound was delayed based on the distance of the user for greater realism and immersion.

I made the firework shader "grainy" so it looks like it wisps away as it becomes dim, just like a real firework:

Additionally, I added a smokey effect so the firework smoke lingers after it explodes. This made it feel and look even more realistic. It also blows away over time:

So now that the market system is in place, what's left for it is to polish it for release. Like previous versions, I tend to polish newly implemented features last. Typically a couple weeks before the big public release and as I go along implementing more stuff.

The last feature for v0.8 is the community voted feature from a few weeks ago, the onsen (Japanese pool house). This will be a typical hot spring spa to chill out and enjoy the view. Typical onsen:

My goal is to create a Japanese building and resort with authentic architectural measurements and designs.  I've already gotten a large amount of work done in the research aspect and have dived into factual Japanese architecture articles and online repositories to ensure that it looks great in-game. It helped greatly that I went to Japan myself a few years ago.

I am by no means an architect but I like to believe that I am good with details and am skilled enough in Blender to replicate designs.

First, to make a Japanese building, I had to learn about floors. Rooms in traditional Japanese houses are measured in tatami mats, typically 1.8x0.9m. You've probably seen tatami mats before:

The interesting thing about tatami mats is that the layout in which they are arranged is very important. If you arrange them wrongly, you could potentially offend somebody since the arrangement may represent unpleasantness. This is where the traditional tatami patterns come in:

The patterns on the left are what you should typically use, the patterns on the right, contrary to popular belief, are wrongful and are used for funeral rooms. Indeed, the devil is in the details. With this in mind I began to sculpt the base floor of my onsen building:

As you can see, I was using the right image for reference to understand what patterns should be used for certain rooms.

The Japanese have a strong emphasis on combining nature with architecture. The spaciousness of their traditional home layouts with large windows and slide able doors (fusuma) allow the residents to easily transition their home from an enclosed insulated dwelling during Winter to an open-air building during Summer. These front porches or engawa, are central to the idea of combining nature with architecture.

My onsen design applied these open air techniques along with long accessible hallways:

Little by little I built the beams, and supports. It was very easy to design and place them once I realized that Japanese rooms are 99% of the time always rectangular in nature:

The image above is the point in which I am at. The colors are placeholders to allow me to visualize different props required. I have so far finished the walls and floor models for the house.

The wall and door extrusion measurements are carefully calibrated based on existing reference images I found.

I haven't started much on the texturing and material side of things but I did finish the tatami textures. Tatami mats are made of straw and are roughly 5.5cm thick. What I did to texture this was first hopped on Substance Painter and made a tile pattern with stretchy ovals:

I then picked out base colors for the quilted straw:

Then I added some irregularities so things look less uniform and more organic:

Lastly I made a short green pattern for the lining:

It came out very well. Reference image used:

That's where I'm at this past week. It's pretty fun learning about architecture while also having a project to apply it towards. Plenty of more fun stuff coming next devpost.

Stay tuned!